SharePoint 2010, 2007...

Unable to locate the xml-definition for CType with SPContentTypeId

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 20:00:00 +0100

Recently I’ve been working to migrate a custom content type deployed with a feature from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 resulting in a lot of errors.

Depending on what changes I made to the content type xml file I got different errors:

Unable to locate the xml-definition for CType with SPContentTypeId '0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2007948130EC3DB064584E219954237AF390027E3522FA4F2451E8AF57D3CC9D40BF10A', exception: Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException ---> System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x8000FFFF): <nativehr>0x8000ffff</nativehr><nativestack></nativestack>
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequestInternalClass.GetGlobalContentTypeXml(String bstrUrl, Int32 type, UInt32 lcid, Object varIdBytes)
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.GetGlobalContentTypeXml(String bstrUrl, Int32 type, UInt32 lcid, Object varIdBytes)     -
-- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPGlobal.HandleComException(COMException comEx)
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.GetGlobalContentTypeXml(String bstrUrl, Int32 type, UInt32 lcid, Object varIdBytes)
at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContentTypeCollection.FillCollection(SPRequest req, SqlDataReader rdr, Boolean openWeb)

<nativehr>0x8107058a</nativehr><nativestack></nativestack>Specified argument was out of the range of valid values.
Parameter name: Content type not found (Id: '0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2007948130EC3DB064584E219954237AF390027E3522FA4F2451E8AF57D3CC9D40BF10A').

Another error I found in the ULS log file was:

Failed to find the parent content type ID="ct-0-0x010100c568db52d9d0a14d9b2fdcc96666e9f2007948130ec3db064584e219954237af39" for content type ID="ct-0-0x010100c568db52d9d0a14d9b2fdcc96666e9f2007948130ec3db064584e219954237af390027e3522fa4f2451e8af57d3cc9d40bf1".

Failed to fill in the content type XML for ct-1033-0x010100c568db52d9d0a14d9b2fdcc96666e9f2007948130ec3db064584e219954237af390027e3522fa4f2451e8af57d3cc9d40bf1 from the parent content type. Error 0x80004005:

<nativehr>0x8107058a</nativehr><nativestack></nativestack>The parent content type specified by content type identifier 0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2007948130EC3DB064584E219954237AF390027E3522FA4F2451E8AF57D3CC9D40BF1 does not exist.

After a short search I found the solution where it was suggested to insert the following code in the content type definition:

  <ContentType ID="SOME_ID"
      Name="NAME"
      Group="GROUP"
      Description="DESCRIPTION"
      Overwrite="TRUE"
      Version="0">
    <FieldRefs>
      <FieldRef ID="..." Name="NAME" />
      ...

    </FieldRefs>
    <DocumentTemplate TargetName="/_layouts/CreatePage.aspx" />
  </ContentType>

Including Overwrite=”True” I was able to successfully create a new site collection with my custom content type definition.

Sandboxed solution: Unable to load assembly group - The user assembly group provider threw an exception

Tue, 31 May 2011 20:28:00 +0100

While developing a sandboxed solution in SharePoint 2010 using the Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint developer tools it happened that I wasn’t able to deploy the solution using F5.

The error message wasn’t exact on how to solve the problem:

Error occurred in deployment step 'Add Solution': Unable to load assembly group. The user assembly group provider threw an exception while trying to provide user assemblies for the specified assembly group.

The detailed information about the error is the following:

Unable to load assembly group. The user assembly group provider threw an 
exception while trying to provide user assemblies for the specified assembly group. 
- Assembly group id: ", GroupId = "<SOME_ID>"" 
- Inner Exception: System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access is denied. 
(Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))    
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.GetListsWithCallback(...)    
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListCollection.EnsureListsData(...)    
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListCollection.Undirty()    
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPBaseCollection.GetEnumerator()    
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPWeb.GetCatalog(SPListTemplateType typeCatalog)    
...

While doing a search I found a suggestion to change the account for the ‘SharePoint 2010 User Code Host’.

The developer image was set up by a colleague who didn’t use the farm account as the domain account for the SharePoint 2010 User Code Host service.

Here you can see the service... while trying to debug I realized that the given account on the right side was not the one I expected.

So I used the services under administrative tools and changed the domain account to the SharePoint 2010 farm account:

Changing the account solved my problem:

At the end I was able to deploy the sandboxed solution.

SharePoint 2010 - Microsoft downloads of April 2010

Mon, 02 May 2011 21:30:00 +0100

Microsoft released a lot of downloadable content in April 2011… most of them come as a PDF or Word document.

Additionally I have listed some very interesting readings and other resources not related to SharePoint which caught my attention.

SharePoint 2010 Administration

SharePoint 2010 Development

SharePoint 2010 Miscellaneous

Interesting resources and readings

By luck I found the following blog I didn’t know before and some interesting readings:

If you are using Blog Engine and need themes here are 2 I like:

Evolution of the intranets

You can check by yourself for new downloadable content… unfortunately there’s no RSS feed. Yes there are download notifications but they don’t count since they lack functionality.

New update: SharePoint Site Provisioning - Content Generator 2011

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:15:00 +0100

As you nay know I have published a free tool called Content Generator 2011 which creates lots of test data in order to create a SharePoint development environment with real world content.

I have updated the tool in order the enhance the SharePoint site provisioning process. The new version number is: 2.1.0.10.

Download

SharePoint Site Provisioning - Content Generator 2011

User manual

Content Generator 2011 - User Manual.pdf (680.04 kb)

Change log

There are quiet a few updates to the application...

v2.1.0.10 - April 5, 2011

New: Folders and sub folders can now be created.
New: Added new list properties which can be set during the creation of a list or document library: content approval, item version history (major and minor), check in / checkout, folder creation.
New: The tool can dynamically load icons from the SharePoint installation folder and display them in the template tree. You can disable this using Tools –> Options. No icons are stored as a resource in the application.
New: 'Add list item' - after adding a list item the new node is expanded for better overview.
Fixed: Approval of list items didn't work because of missing ListItem.Update() method call.
Fixed: Copy & Paste of nodes in the tree didn't ensure pasting a node as a new object for all sub nodes... original node and new node had the same object in memory and therefore changing one of them changed both.
Fixed: 'Add list item' is now only enabled when clicking on a list or library.
Fixed: User was able to delete the root Node "Site Collection".

Support

Please post your comments, suggestions or bug reports here:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/andreasglasernet/115186135223629

Since this is a free version there is no regular support available. New features are added or bugs are fixed as soon as possible.

Thanks for your understanding.

SharePoint App Market

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 21:40:00 +0100

There’s a new player in the house regarding product directories for SharePoint: SharePoint App Market.

The idea behind is the possibility for independent software developers and companies to have a platform where they can offer their solutions:

You can filter and sort the solutions using categories and tags:

How does it work

Submitting your solution is fast and easy. After you have registered yourself you can select a category for your solution:

After selecting a category you can set a title, the SharePoint version it works with as well as a description, tags, up to 5 images and some more…

At the end you need to accept the guidelines and wait for approval which was the next day after submitting it around midnight.

Things I like

There are some things I really like… first of all you have a dashboard available showing your solutions and the approval status:

Second you can edit your own solutions as you like:

Third you can directly contact the author of a solution using a box next to the solution which seems more promising than searching for a contact form at the vendors web site:

Summary

At first glance it looks a little bit confusing talking about ‘ads’ but after a few minutes the concept makes sense. Anyway the possibilities as an author of a solution are great since you can manage the ‘ads’ by yourself.

SharePoint 2010 - Microsoft downloads of March 2010

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 20:10:00 +0100

Microsoft released a lot of downloadable content in March 2011… most of them come as a PDF or Word document.

This time there are quiet some SharePoint worksheets.

SharePoint 2010 Worksheets

SharePoint 2010 Administration

SharePoint 2010 Search

Perform a search-first migration

SharePoint 2010 Miscellaneous

You can check by yourself for new downloadable content… unfortunately there’s no RSS feed.

Yes there are download notifications but they don’t count since they lack functionality.

SharePoint 2010 - Microsoft downloads of February 2010

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 20:50:00 +0100

Microsoft released only a few but interesting downloads in February 2011 compared to January.

Most of them come as a PDF or Word document.

SharePoint 2010 Upgrade

Upgrading to SharePoint Foundation 2010

SharePoint 2010 Administration

SharePoint 2010 Search

SharePoint 2010 Miscellaneous

You can check by yourself for new downloadable content… unfortunately there’s no RSS feed.

Yes there are download notifications but they don’t count since they lack functionality.

SharePoint Certification

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 19:58:00 +0100

It’s time to get a SharePoint certification… either you want it or you are forced but it doesn’t matter because here are the things which can help you to achieve this goal.

Here are a lot of useful resources to get your own SharePoint Certification.

SharePoint Books

SharePoint Certification exam resources

Here are the resources provided by Microsoft regarding the 4 different SharePoint 2010 certifications:

SharePoint Certification training

Microsoft also provides trainings:

Blogs

Benjamin Athaws has the SharePoint 2010 Administrator certification which means that he passed 70-667 and 70-668.

Here are details about how he passed:

Microsoft Certified Master on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

If you have all of the SharePoint certifications you can try to get the Microsoft Certified Master on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010.

The skills needed are the skills of an IT-Pro as far as I understand...

...so if you are a SharePoint developer you should carefully read the resources:

With SharePoint 2010 there are a lot of resources you can use to prepare for your exam and to get your own SharePoint certification.

Hope you get certified...

How to install SharePoint in real world

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 19:50:00 +0100

How to install SharePoint in real world isn’t a matter of doing it’s a matter of planning. Of course there can be a lot of difficulties and problems during the deployment process itself but with a bad planning it’s even hard to get to that point.

Here are some thoughts which may be helpful. I’m interested in your thoughts…

Considerations

Usually it’s important to support customers during the planning and deployment of a SharePoint 2010 installation. Although they have experienced administrators and project managers they lack SharePoint knowledge if it hasn’t been part of their companies strategy.

There are a lot of things that my help… Microsoft has released a lot of great articles: Deployment for SharePoint Server 2010. You can enhance the information with checklists or pictures as you can see in the following paragraphs.

SharePoint 2010 hardware and software requirements

The SharePoint 2010 deployment itself has a lot of diverse requirements as you can see here: Prepare for deployment (SharePoint Server 2010). In medium or big sized companies you will have different contact persons who are responsible for things like Active Directory, SQL Server, DNS, Firewalls or certificates. First they need to know what to do since they aren’t involved with SharePoint. Second they have other things to do and they need time to prepare your requirements.

So preparing a detailed list of requirements is important. Using the detailed requirements you have also some kind of checklist you can use to verify if everything is really done. It’s also useful to have pictures ready… e.g. of your required infrastructure. A pictures says more than 1’000 words.

It’s also good to have a responsible person available if it comes to the deployment itself and you encounter problems.

SharePoint 2010 operations

Although there is nothing deployed right now people have questions about maintenance, security or backup. It’s a good idea to provide additional information like Plan security hardening (SharePoint Server 2010) or Harden SQL Server for SharePoint environments (SharePoint Server 2010). Administrators are interested in how they can integrate SharePoint in their daily work or if methods they know apply to SharePoint.

Prepare install media

Verify that the installation media and the product keys are available before you go to your customer. It happens from time to time that they say ‘yes it’s here’ and during deployment they search for the media or keys.

You can also try to create updated installation media using slipstreams: Slipstreaming SP2 into SharePoint Server 2007. This method saves you time during the installation process and can be reused for different environments and customers.

How to install SharePoint

Verify by yourself before you install something if all requirements are done. You can use the checklist mentioned earlier. If you start to install and notice that something is missing or wrong you wasted a lot of time and have additional work to clean it up. There are a lot of different guides helping you to install SharePoint.

You can also download a copy on how to install SharePoint.

Problems and solutions

Of course there are problems since there isn’t one infrastructure matching another even if you are well prepared. Experience and your favorite search engine are your best friends. Sometimes it just helps to paste the complete error message into the search box. So having internet access around you might be helpful.

Scripts

SharePoint 2010 comes with a lot of PowerShell commands and you should use them… you can create scripts for SharePoint 2010 installation and configuration and reuse them for different environments and customers. Here are some examples:

SharePoint 2010 initial configuration

You should at least configure logging and outgoing mail: Initial configuration (SharePoint Server 2010). Of course it won’t end with that…

SharePoint Backup and Restore

Right after you have successfully deployed SharePoint 2010 you need a working backup and restore solution. People will delete something… databases, content, site collections… everything and every time.

Documentation

The documentation of the whole process is the most important part. It has to be accurate and detailed. It won’t be done later and there will be no responsible person doing it if you aren’t there. And a few months later it will be your fault and it doesn’t matter if you had the task or not.

Uninstall SharePoint 2010

If you think you made a big mistake take a look how to uninstall SharePoint: Uninstall SharePoint Server 2010.

What do you think?

Please leave a comment about your thoughts on how to install SharePoint…

SharePoint 2010 - Programmatically create a folder in document libraries and lists

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 19:06:00 +0100

Maybe this was easy for everyone else but I have to admit that this wasn’t easy for me. As you may know I have developed a tool for SharePoint 2010 Site Provisioning in order to enhance the SharePoint development process which wasn’t able to programmatically create folders and subfolder in a document library or list.

So while I tried to change this I had a lot of trouble to achieve my goal.

Programmatically create a folder in a document library

This is the desired result:

I was able to successfully create a folder in a document library using this code:

SPList list = web.Lists.TryGetList("ListTitle");

SPFolderCollection folderColl = list.RootFolder.SubFolders;
SPFolder newFolder = folderColl.Add(FolderUrl);

FolderUrl means one of the following:

"/Document Library/Folder1"
Creates a folder named “Folder1” under “Document Library”…
"/Document Library/Folder1/Folder11"
Creates a folder named “Folder11” under “Folder1” in “Document Library”…
"/Subsite/Document Library/Folder1"
Creates a folder named “Folder1” under “Document Library” in a sub site…
"/Subsite/Document Library/Folder1/Folder11"
Creates a folder named “Folder11” under “Folder1” in “Document Library” in a sub site…

You need to use an URL including the name of the new folder which is different to creating a folder in a list.

Programmatically create a folder in a list

So after we can create a folder in a SharePoint document library we now can create them in SharePoint lists.

This is the desired result:

I was able to successfully create a folder in a SharePoint list using this code:

SPList list = web.Lists.TryGetList("ListTitle");

SPListItem newFolderItem = list.Items.Add(completeFolderUrl, SPFileSystemObjectType.Folder);
newFolderItem["Title"] = "TitleOfTheFolder";
newFolderItem.Update();

completeFolderUrl means one of the following:

"/lists/Custom List"
The folder is created under “Custom List”…
"/lists/Custom List/Folder1"
The folder is created under “Folder1” in “Custom List”…
"/aboutus/lists/Custom List"
The folder is created under “Custom List” in a sub site…
"/aboutus/lists/Custom List/Folder1"
The folder is created under “Folder1” in “Custom List” in a sub site…

Important: The folder didn’t create for me when my “completeFolderUrl” ended with a slash ‘/’.

Summary

I don’t know if I’m the only one who had problems to programmatically create folders and subfolder in a document library or list but I hope this helps someone else before you bang your head against the wall or table.

Hope you like it...